Common Issues

Storm is telling me my disk space is low and I cannot download any lockers. What do I do?

This happens when the drive that you have your DragonFly Vault on is running out of space. In order to free up space on that drive, you should go through your downloaded lockers in Storm and delete any that you no longer need. You can also clear out lockers in your public or private locker rooms as well, such as content from previous seasons. Make certain that you use Storm to delete lockers and do not go into the DragonFly Vault folder itself and delete anything as you may delete files that Storm needs to function properly. Using the Storm interface ensures that only the right items get deleted.

Though we always recommend that the drive you have your DragonFly Vault on is only used for Storm, if you do have Non-Storm content on that drive, you may want to consider moving it to another location which will free up space on that drive. If your DragonFly Vault is on your C drive, we highly recommend putting it on a secondary local hard drive. Video can take up considerable space and keeping your C drive free helps your computer run better in the long term. If you are unsure of deleting or moving Non-Storm content, you should consult with your IT department. Please let us know if you need assistance with moving your DragonFly Vault to another drive and we will be happy to assist you.

If you wish to keep any content, you can export /convert the lockers or burn them to DVD and store them in another location prior to deleting the lockers in Storm.

I would like to delete lockers but want to copy the files elsewhere first.

There are multiple options to do this. You can export a locker which will make a copy of the files. You can convert the locker which will convert it to a format you wish. You can also burn the locker to DVD. When exporting and converting, you will be asked where you would like to save the file(s). You can choose anywhere you wish including a thumb drive, external drive, etc. Once you have the what you need out of Storm, you can then delete the locker using Storm.

I’ve deleted lockers but my disk drive is still showing the same amount of space free.

When you first delete lockers in Storm, Storm will put them into what we call Supporting Content. Think of Supporting Content like a recycle bin in Windows. This feature is so that lockers can be retrieved in case of accidental deletion. Anything in Supporting Content will be overwritten as you create new lockers or download lockers from other schools.

You can click on the pie chart on the lower right of Storm to bring up your disk status. It will show you a breakdown of your DragonFly Vault drive. You will see how much free space is on that drive along with how much space your lockers are taking up. You will also see the size of supporting content. If you add up the Free Space and Supporting Content numbers, this will tell you how much space Storm has for you to create lockers and download lockers. If the size of the locker(s) you are trying to download exceeds the combined total of free space and supporting content, then you will need to make more space. Please refer to the “Disk Management Explained” section in our support page for more info.

I’m trying to download from a school and it says “Waiting on more files”

This occurs when the locker is still in the process of being created. Once the other team’s Storm has all the files in the locker, the transfer will begin.

I’m trying to download from a school and the locker(s) shows ‘Pending’ or ‘Offline’.

This usually happens when the Storm machine that the locker is on is offline. This can mean that the other school’s Storm is not running or the computer is somehow unreachable due to being off or not connected to the internet. In some cases, schools have more than one Storm computer and the locker you are trying to get is on one that is off while the other is on. This can result in you getting some lockers and not others. There are also cases where the files have been deleted or moved from the vault on the sender side and the transfer will not happen since there are no files available.

You should contact the school you are trying to exchange with and have them confirm that Storm is running and that the computer it is on currently has internet access. You should also confirm with them that the lockers you are trying to download have not been deleted, etc. since you began the transfer.

I’m being told by other schools that my Storm is offline or they cannot download a locker from me.

When you create a locker, the files are stored locally on that computer. DragonFly does not store your files on our servers. For this reason, your Storm computer at your office should be left up and running as much as possible. This will ensure that your game film is available for others to download from you.

If you are being told by others schools that they are unable to download a game from you, you need to check to make sure that your Storm computer is indeed up and running. You should also make sure it has access to the internet.

If you have multiple Storm computers, you may have your content split among them. Storm does not sync your content with your other Storm computers and will only be available from the computer it was created on. There are instances where one of your Storm computers may be on and another one off. In these cases, the other teams will receive a “Pending” message instead of an OFF message since one of your Storm computers is online and the one with the locker they are trying to get is offline. Also, confirm with the team what locker(s) they are trying to download from you and make sure that the locker isn’t telling you that it is Checking State. This indicates that the files have been moved or deleted.

My lockers show “Checking State”

This happens because the files for that locker are not where Storm expects them to be. They have either been deleted or moved from their original location in the DragonFly Vault. This can be because someone manually went into the DragonFly Vault folder and deleted or moved them. It has also been known to be caused by software such as anti-virus software. In this case, you should delete the affected lockers and recreate/re download them.

This can also happen if Storm is started and the drive with DragonFly Vault is not connected or is otherwise not accessible. Users will be asked where the Vault is at and may choose a new location which results in Storm creating a new DragonFly Vault without any video files. This can be resolved by contacting us and we can reconfigure Storm to point to the correct location provided the drive is accessible.

If other schools try to download lockers that have no files, the transfer will showing Pending and not happen since there are no files there to be transferred.

My downloads are going too slow. Other schools can download from me fast but I can’t get things from them very fast.

STORM does not have any limits or controls for bandwidth. Transfer speeds can be limited by several factors. When transferring files, you must take into consideration not only the speed of your internet, but also the speed of the other school’s internet. Even if you have very fast internet, if the other school does not, you will be limited by their speed. Congestion on each school’s network, and issues in between them and you, can also be a limiting factor. Your IT staff (or theirs) may also have policies in place that throttle bandwidth. We have also seen that issues with hardware such as hard drives can also result in download issues. If you believe there are problems or limitations with your network or hardware, your IT staff is the best choice to help you investigate and resolve it. We will be happy to assist in isolating potential issues.

We find that on many campuses, outgoing traffic usually has more bandwidth available than incoming traffic. This can result in other schools being able to download from you faster than you can download from them. Running a speed test may show if this is the case. At many campuses, most are shared connections that both faculty and students use. Most users tend to download data rather than send it out so you end up with lopsided amount of bandwidth available.

You should contact your IT department and discuss your situation with them. They can inform you if there are policies in place that may be affecting you. They may also be able to set up a policy that gives Storm traffic a higher priority than other types of traffic on the network or allow exceptions during non-peak hours.

Typically, your outbound ports will be open while one or both of your inbound ports will not be. You should contact your IT department and have them configure the ports for use with your Storm computer. While having these ports blocked will not keep you from exchanging with other schools that have their ports open, it will cause problems if the school you are exchanging with also has their ports blocked. When both sides have ports blocked, your Storm and theirs cannot communicate and facilitate the transfer. At least one side of the exchange must have their inbound ports open. By having your IT staff set these ports up properly, you will not have to worry about getting into that type of situation. If your IT staff has questions about this, please contact us and we can help answer any questions they have.

The following can be used by your IT department to help test that ports are setup correctly. This test should be run from outside your network such as from a McDonald’s, Starbucks, etc. to simulate a connection coming from another STORM machine.

Telnet <public ip> 60011

Make sure that command rings in. Press several keys and you will get a STORM disconnect message to make sure. If this does not work, then the ports are not, in fact, setup correctly.

I’m not seeing lockers for another school

If you have just started Storm for the first time, it can sometimes take 15-20 minutes for Storm to download the most recent catalogs. Catalogs are a list of what lockers other schools have. Make sure to leave Storm up and running so that it can receive the catalogs. In rare cases, it can take longer than 15-20 minutes. You should leave Storm running as much as possible as it will periodically check for changes in catalogs and update them as needed. You should also verify with the school that they have the lockers you are looking for posted. You can also click on ‘Refresh Catalogs’ at the top of Storm to initiate the process of checking for catalogs.

If you have left Storm up and running for at least an hour and have verified with the other school that they have posted the lockers you are looking for, please contact us and we will be happy to assist.

What format should I use when creating lockers?

Lockers can be created with any video format you wish. You can also add in non-video files such as pdf’s. When a team downloads a locker from you, they have an option to convert the video files if they need them in another format, so you do not have to worry about making sure they are in any certain format. Please note that some conferences have policies in place that do dictate what format everyone in that conference should use. You should check with your conference to find out if such a policy exists.

I can’t find the lockers that I downloaded. Where are they?

On the left hand side of Storm, you will see ‘Downloaded Lockers’ in the list underneath where your lockers go. A quick way to get there is to hit ‘Downloads’ next to the yellow star above the search box on the left above your lockers. Next to this is also a button labeled ‘My Lockers’ which will take you to your lockers.

How do I send a locker to another school? Another school sent me a locker but I haven’t received it.

Select the locker you would like to send and click the blue send link. In the menu that appears, find the conference that the school belongs to. Next, select the school, then the sport that you want to send to. A box will appear asking for you to type a confirmation in order to continue. Make sure that the other school has permissions set for you to send lockers to them. You can only send lockers that you have created.

If you are expecting a locker from another school, make sure you have set permissions with that school to allow them to send lockers to you. In addition, under ‘Options & Settings’, make sure that Automatic Downloads have been enabled.

Anytime you are expecting a locker and not seeing it, you should always coordinate with the other school to make sure they have actually sent it to you.

What are permissions? How do I set them?

Permissions determine what you allow other schools to see, download, or send to you. You control permissions that you grant to other schools and they, in turn, control permissions given to you. You must set permissions for each school individually.

Select the school/sport you wish to set permissions with. On the right side of Storm, above where the other school’s lockers would appear, you will see what permissions have been granted by you to them, and vice versa. To change permissions:

Click on ‘Permissions’ just below the check boxes.

In the ‘Set Permissions’ box that appears, you will see three options to check:

Send Lockers To Me – By checking this option, you are granting the school permission to send you lockers.

Download My Lockers – By checking this option, you are granting the school permission to download any lockers that you have available in your public locker room. This does not apply to Private Lockers.

See My Locker List – By checking this option, you are granting the school permission to see the list of lockers you have available in your public locker room. This does not apply to Private Lockers.

Typically, if a school is in your conference, you will grant full permissions to them. They should also do the same for you. Since each school controls their own permissions, you will need to talk to any school that you do not have permission from to grant you permission if you think you should have it. Please check with your conference administrators for what your conference policies are regarding permissions.

For non-conference schools, you are free to give permissions as you see fit.

To check what schools you have granted permission to, you can click Permissions at the top of Storm. This will show you every school you have granted permission to and which permissions have been granted. You can go through this list and revoke any permission you no longer wish to grant.

How do I send a guest invite?

On the left hand side of Storm, there is a white search box above your lockers. Type the name of the school you want to send the invite to. In the yellow box that appears below, you will see the search results as you type. As you type the results will narrow down. Once you see the school you are searching for, you will see the list of sports below it. Next to the sport, you should see ‘Invite as guest…’ in green. Click on ‘Invite as guest…’ and a new window will appear. In this window, put in your name and email followed by the first name, last name, and email of the person you are trying to invite as a guest and click ‘Next. You will then be shown an Invitation Preview that shows the email with instructions that the guest user will receive.

I am not a DragonFly Storm customer, how can I exchange with a school that is?

You will need a guest invite from one of our customers. This will give you a guest pass that will allow you to use Storm for 7 days from the time the invite was sent. If you wish to exchange with more than one school, then each school must send you a guest invite. You will not be able to exchange with other guest users.

I’ve got a guest invite from a school. How do I access the video they are sending me?

Once you have received the guest invite, you will need to follow the instructions in the email and install Storm. Once installed, if the other school has sent you video, you will begin receiving it shortly. Make sure to leave Storm up and running. If you do not see any downloads begin after 15 or 20 minutes, you should contact the other school and confirm with them that they have actually sent the video. Sending an invite and sending a locker (video) are separate actions and some schools may wait until they know you are setup in Storm before they send the video. Once it does download, it will appear in your downloaded lockers.

How do I get the files out of Storm into my editor?

If the files are already in the correct format for your editor, you simply need to export the locker. Once exported, you can then import the files using your editor’s import function.

If the files are not in the correct format for your editor, choose the convert option. You will then be able to choose what format you would like to convert to such as Thunder, DVSport, mp4, etc. Once converted, you can then import the files using your editor’s import function.

Whether exporting or converting, any marks associated with the video will be translated over as well. If converting, the format you are converting to must support marks.

Can I run Storm on multiple computers? Can I use Storm on the road?

Yes. Storm can be run on as many computers as you would like. A typical scenario we see with users is that they keep one Storm at the office and use one on a laptop on the road.

While this is certainly ok to do, there are some things to be aware of:

We recommend that you only create lockers on your office copy of Storm to share with other teams. The reason for this is that any lockers you create in Storm will only be stored on that machine and do not sync with your other Storm computer, nor do we store your content on our servers. Your Storm running at the office can be left on and be accessible by other teams 24/7 where if you have lockers on your laptop on the road, they will not always be accessible while you are travelling, etc.

When taking Storm on the road, you will not necessarily have the most optimum experience due to varying quality of the networks you are on. When running Storm at your office, you have the benefit of your IT setting up your inbound ports and setting up policies that provide you with good bandwidth. When on the road, ports are controlled by whoever administers the network you are on. For instance, if you are at a hotel, then the hotel would control the ports. Bandwidth at places such as hotels, fast food restaurants, etc. tends not to be optimal either.

The computer you are taking with you on the road should just be used for downloading games. If you do create lockers to share, keep in mind that it will not always be available for the reasons we have already covered. You should get that game on your main office Storm as soon as possible.

You may run into instances where you receive the “Ports are blocked” message more often than when you are at the office. This is will happen when the team you are trading with has their ports blocked and yours are blocked as well. One participant in the transfer must have the ports open for it to work.